Learning Spanish with Duolingo

Last updated on 13 March 2024

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My mum can speak Spanish fluently. I can’t. But I’ve always wanted to be able to. At one stage they thought about speaking to me (and then my sister) in both English and Spanish, but for some reason didn’t. I so wish they had. But it is what it is, and I can’t speak Spanish.

In high school, the only language offered was Te Reo Māori (I went to a small school), but in Year 11 (5th form, age 15) I took a Spanish correspondence paper, which was great and I did pretty well in it. It just wasn’t that fun by myself. I did have a few other friends who were doing correspondence studies, so we sat in the same area together, so that was okay.

I only did one year of Spanish, not liking the ‘work at your own pace’ style of study. But it was a good intro, and I think that it helped that I had grown up hearing Spanish all my life (my mum’s side of the family all being fluent), so I already knew a little, and knew the sounds, and already knew I couldn’t roll my R’s.

Since then, I haven’t done any further study or learning, until earlier this year when a friend told me about the app Duolingo.

If you don’t know what it is, basically it’s a language-learning app, which allows you to choose a language, and then gives you lessons which you work through. As well as translation exercises, there are listening and speaking exercises too, though you can turn them off.

You start off with the basics, things like hello, goodbye, how are you? etc, and move on to things like greetings, food, animals, through to objects, questions, procession, family, sizes, adverbs and way more. Each different topic, e.g. animals, has a number of lessons within them, and then once you’ve passed all those, each topic has a lesson at the end which you can go back and do over and over to continue practising your weak words, and to strengthen your ability on that section.

While I was doing the lessons every day for a little while, I’m been a little bit bad recently and haven’t been doing much. But according to the app, I’m 36% fluent, so that’s more than 0 (but probably more than I actually am). If you don’t practice every day though, that percentage goes down. You can also sign up and do it online too, you don’t even have to download the app.

One of my favourite things about Duolingo are the sentences it makes you say. Some of my favourites have been:

Yo soy un oso – I am the bear. (my favourite. I’m not just any bear, I am THE bear)

Los martes como queso – On Tuesdays I eat cheese. (No, Duolingo. Queso is for every day of the week)

No veo las fresas – I don’t see the strawberries (important to learn for summer fruit picking sessions)

Yo como porque tú come – I eat because you eat (that’s love)

No quiero una camisa porque quiero una falda – I do not want a shirt because I want a skirt (can’t beat that logic)

So you know, you definitely learn sentences that you’ll use in everyday life (she says, sarcastically). But it is great fun and I’m really enjoying it.

Of course, there are other ways to learn languages, the best probably just heading to another country and hanging out there for a while. Full immersion learning, friends. But for lack of that, Duolingo is pretty darn awesome. Especially because it’s free. You can even follow along with your friends’ progress, and see a leaderboard (which is super motivating). If you’re on Duolingo and want to keep up to date with what I’m learning, you can add me: AnjaliKay.

Have you tried learning Spanish with Duolingo? Another language?

Disclaimer: As much as I love Duolingo, they did not ask me to write this. These are my own opinions on an app I really love.

Images from Duolingo